Recovery Stories

NOTE: I don't mean to toot my own horn, but I'm quite pleased that what was a simple introduction a few years ago, has turned into meaningful progress toward recovery for so many families through Generation Rescue. My dear friend Sarge Goodchild of Active Healing told me about the IonCleanse system and how he was seeing great results in his practice in Massachusetts. I introduced Glenn Wilhelm to Candace McDonald and well, read the rest for yourself! We need hope and progress as we head into April and the IonCleanse water is ANYTHING but BLUE, as those of you who've used it know! KIM

Last December, we hosted our annual 12 Days of Giving campaign, where we teamed up with many of our partners to offer autism families access to vital treatments and therapies they might not have otherwise been able to afford.

One of our lucky winners was Dave Borden, who won an IonCleanse detoxification system for his son. We checked in with Dave to see how their family was liking the system. Here’s what he had to report:

My 10-year-old son with autism seems to be responding well to the IonCleanse by AMD. Surprisingly, Ethan had no hesitation when we started. He put his feet right in the water, and he still really loves doing his footbaths. In fact, he’ll put his feet in the water before we are able to even turn on the system.

Communication is Getting Better

After 45 days, we have definitely seen some positive improvements. His receptive language appears to be getting a little better, and he is trying to communicate more. Instead of screaming, he has been walking out of his room, and saying to us, “find the mote.” The mote means remote. This is Ethan’s way of saying I want to watch a movie, and it’s a big improvement from the typical shouting from his room.

When a parent hears the words “your child has autism” everything changes. Generation Rescue is here for that change and the many more to come throughout their lifetime. Many individuals with autism suffer from treatable conditions like gut issues, sleep disorders and mitochondrial dysfunction which directly impact speech development, behavior and focus. Our grant program provides the opportunity to pursue treating these underlying symptoms of autism.

We understand that financial costs is often times the prohibitive reason from pursuing treatment, therefore, our grant program is available to individuals of ALL ages with an economic need.

We are taking seven children with a diagnosis of autism, ADHD, asthma or other chronic illness and providing them with FREE healing and recovery services for 18 months. The children’s recovery journey will be documented on film and made into a feature-length movie. To view the trailer of Canary Kids, please click here.

Some of the many benefits of attending this amazing event include:

Guests will have the opportunity to learn about and support the making of a game-changing/paradigm-shifting documentary film, Canary Kids.

This conversation started from
Harrison noticing me wearing a new pair of flip-flops (the ones from Healthy Souls that benefits Generation Rescue).
They were the first flip-flops I’ve ever had, but for the first pair, it
was like it was meant to happen.

Harrison saw me wearing them (my
sandals) and said, “Dad, you have new shoes!”

This started a conversation which
was one of the biggest turning points in his recovery: identifying with autism
for the first time. I pointed to the “a”
in the puzzle piece (on the sandal) and asked, “Do you know what this is?”

Harrison
replied, “It’s a puzzle piece.”

I asked, “Do you know what the “a” means?”

Harrison
looked at me and replied, “Autism.”

I had never heard him say ‘autism’
before, so I asked, “Do you know what autism is?”

Harrison
replied, “It’s a sickness.”

I asked another question, “What
kind of sickness?”

Harrison
pointed to his stomach and head saying, “Where your tummy hurts and you can’t
talk.”

I was in a state of amazed shock at
this point and wanted to keep it going, so I said, “But you can talk now, and
you’ve said for awhile that your tummy doesn’t hurt anymore.”

Harrison
looked up at me, “Yes, I’m getting much better now.”

I asked him, “How did you get
better?” and he answered, “Dr. Usman, Dr. Krigsman, and Dr. Michele (his
primary care), are all taking away my autism.”

I could barely squeak out, “Do you
remember what it was like when you couldn’t talk?”

Harrison
answered, “Yes, it was the sickness, but now I’m much better. Can I watch YouTube now please?”

In 2012 at Autism One, I met Nicholas Glenski, a young man
who said he hoped to "go the distance" and one day, cure himself of
autism. He was so enthusiastic and inspired by so many speakers last year that
now one year later, he, himself was a speaker at Autism One -- and he did a
beautiful job!

I have to confess, when Nicholas called me one evening
during the winter months and told me that he was giving a talk on autism and
his road to recovery, I was nervous for him as I thought how could he talk
about so many issues regarding treatments? Well, being the tenacious teen that
he is, Nicholas simply decided to pick up the phone and call researchers, reach
out to moms on FB who were treating their own children, and seek out help by
reading all he could.

His dad, Richard, told me that this journey first started three
years ago in St. Louis when he took Nicholas to an autism conference and they
heard Temple Grandin speak. That set off a spark in Nicholas and then a
profound desire to learn more, especially when he met a biochemist there who
talked about biomedical treatments for autism. One of Temple's books was bought
that night, and Nicholas was later reading it voraciously when he accidentally
left it in his dad's car between visits. His dad saw it and decided to read it
as well. He too felt more inspired, and when he heard that Temple herself was
coming to St. Louis for a presentation, Richard surprised Nicholas by taking
him there. Nicholas has since told me that Jenny's McCarthy's focus on her
son's journey to recovery has made Nicholas a huge fan and also an avid
believer in biomedical treatments for autism. Nicholas then began researching
for himself because as he stated:

I have identical twin boys. Their world today is very different than their world was a few years ago. Pre-recovery, all they got for Christmas was books. It was all they wanted. I'll never forget their 3rd Christmas. As they came down the stairs Christmas morning, they focused on the large stacks of books. They didn't just like any books, they liked the books that were about learning to read, write, and do math. They yelled, "Books!" with excitement, and then tore through the stacks as if they were the happiest children in the world -- getting just what they wanted for Christmas.

I suppose one would be wondering, "What's so bad about that." Well, the bad news is that their world consisted of only letters and numbers. Caregivers and relatives would complain how they would not respond to their name, nor recognize them. At the store, they would point to numbers, while ignoring the toys. At home, they would sit for hours at a time, exploring books. The only attention they gave to toys, were to line them up. The only exception was electronic learning toys. They obsessed over them to such an extent that they were able to use these devices to teach themselves to read, write, and do math. They would write a sentence in perfect manuscript or incursive, such as, "I want a cookie." At first, I thought my children were just geniuses, but. . . . . even though they could write complete sentences, their speech consisted of a very small amount of words. They would approach me and say, "A cookie," or "A drink." When I asked them to say the sentence, "I want a cookie," they would cry instead. I had to admit to myself, that they, too, were part of the current autism epidemic. A local psychologist diagnosed them both with PDD, NOS.

They were 3 years and 3 months at the time recovery efforts were started. They started responding right away, but slowly. They barely made it into regular education classes. They were potty trained just a few months before it was time to start Kindergarten. After a few weeks of school, I was contacted by an Assistant Principal and informed that my children had difficulty with transitioning, and that their obsessions and meltdowns were creating doubts amongst their teachers that they would be able to continue in school. Recovery treatments were stepped up, and they were able to continue in regular education classes. Today, they are in the 2nd grade, and treated by school personnel as if they are neurotypical. Most days they do well, but there are still some meltdowns. Recovery is not absolute in my family. Those last few symptoms seem to be stubborn, fading back in from time to time. Just when you think they may be able to tolerate a reduction in recovery treatments, a symptom will flare back up. Thus, they are in managed recovery which has it's own set of stresses and uncertainties.

Managing Editor's Note: Big news from our friends at Autism One and Generation Rescue. Hope to see you in Chicago this May!

Hello!

We have a gift from our family to your family. The headline says it all. This year's annual International Autismone/Generation Rescue conference features FREE admission. It is with open arms that we invite you come and share with the AutismOne family that which we have collectively learned over the past decade. Here's a brief glimpse of what you can look forward to.

Why bother to call attention to Dr. Paul Offit, the vaccine patent-holder who has led the attack on the idea that vaccines have anything to do with autism or any of the myriad of other ailments afflicting this generation of American children? Well, because other people are paying attention -- including the nation's pediatricians and the mainstream journalists who need to start calling him to account. Offit has a new book out -- "Deadly Choices: How the Anti-Vaccine Movement Threatens Us All." Here's the question doctors who recommend him to nervous parents, and parents unsure what to think, and journalists who interview him, need to ask: Why is Offit transparently opposed to ever studying the health outcomes of vaccinated versus unvaccinated Americans, even as he acknowledges that vaccines have a long history of causing serious side effects?

While his last book, "Autism's False Prophets," focused squarely on the disability now afflicting 1 in 100 children, Offit branches out here to deride those who have any concerns whatsoever about the safety of the current vaccine schedule. There is plenty of sympathy for parents of children who have died of infectious diseases, but perfunctory dismissal in cases where parents blame vaccines.

Thus Michael Belkin, whose daughter Lyla died after her hepatitis B shot, is treated as a gullible gadfly, goaded by Barbara Loe Fisher into heading "the Hepatitis B Vaccine Project at her National Vaccine information Center. Soon Belkin, a Wall Street financial adviser, was everywhere" -- everywhere being the CDC and Congress, which is exactly where he should have been as a citizen and parent who believes that Hep B is a dangerous and unnecessary childhood vaccine that killed his daughter. Sniffs Offit: "Despite Belkin's certainty that hepatitis B vaccine had caused his daughter's SIDS, study after study failed to support him."

Parents of girls who died after Gardasil vaccination get similar treatment. The idea that Gardasil is dangerous is "a contention refuted by careful study" and "established science."

And chickenpox vaccines are critically important because chickenpox can lead to shingles, "one of medicine's most debilitating diseases. Shingles is so painful that it has at times led to suicide. And shingles doesn't only affect the skin; sometimes when the virus reawakens it causes strokes, resulting in permanent paralysis. Chickenpox is a disease worth preventing." Absent is any acknowledgement of the evidence that the vaccine itself, by reducing cases of simple childhood chickenpox, has led to a big increase in shingles by removing the protective immunological "bump" those who already harbor the virus receive when they are re-exposed.

Hannah Poling and the government's $20 million concession that vaccines resulted in her autistic regression? Not mentioned. Billions paid out by vaccine court for all sorts of injuries over the past 20 years? Well, vaccine court is a strange place ...

Anyone concerned about any of these things fits Offit's definition of anti-vaccine, because vaccines don't cause any of them, because Paul Offit says so, a solipsism that is really quite breathtaking: "[B]ecause anti-vaccine activists today define safe as free from side effects such as autism, learning disabilities, attention deficit disorder, multiple sclerosis, diabetes, strokes, heart attacks, and blood clots -- conditions that aren't caused by vaccines -- safer vaccines, using their definition, can never be made."

Yet Offit himself yields an amazing amount of ground by describing unsafe vaccines -- including early polio shots and a rotavirus vaccine that was the immediate predecessor of his own. His technique is to situate all this as historical, part of the triumphant march of progress into the bright sunshine of vaccine safety. Here's a description I find especially astonishing: "When Barbara Loe Fisher burst onto the scene, several vaccines had serious side effects, every year causing allergic reactions, paralysis, or death. Public health officials and doctors didn't hide these problems. But they didn't do anything to correct them, either. And most parents had no idea they existed."

Public health officials did nothing to fix vaccine problems that led to paralysis and death? And parents didn't know about it? Is this not an indictment of the medical industry, and an unintentional endorsement advocates who have worked to remedy it? Does it not argue that at least some of the time parental observations may well be correct, an early warning system of the first order? Well, no, because apparently those things no longer happen -- to say otherwise, in Offit's parallel universe, would be anti-vaccine conspiratorial quackery.

Much of the book is a score-settling screed against anyone who's ever criticized him or vaccine safety surveillance, including Fisher, Jenny McCarthy and J.B. Handley. So it's no surprise that his "can't be done" argument against studying unvaccinated populations for any untoward outcomes arrives in the middle of an attack on Handley. Offit quotes J.B.'s comments on a Larry King segment in April 2009: "Larry, we have no idea what the combination risk of our vaccine schedule looks like. At the two-month visit, a child gets six vaccines in under fifteen minutes. The only way to test that properly would be to have a group of kids who get all six and a group of kids who got none and see what happens. They don't do that testing. They have no idea."

Offit's comment: "Handley was asking for a study of vaccinated and unvaccinated children. One result is certain: given recent outbreaks of Hib, measles, mumps, and pertussis, no vaccinated children would suffer and possibly die from preventable infections. It would be, of course, an entirely unethical experiment. No investigator could prospectively study children who are denied a potentially lifesaving medical product. And no university's or hospital's institutional review board worth its salt would ever approve such a study."

Offit goes on, outrageously, to compare Handley's proposal to the infamous Tuskegee experiment in which doctors withheld treatment from black males suffering from syphilis in order to study the natural course of the disease.

P-LEEZE. No one I know of is suggesting that a study of unvaccinated children deliberately withhold vaccination. Rather, there are growing numbers of never-vaccinated children in America -- a fact Offit acknowledges with dismay -- and plenty of families willing to participate in such a study. State governments have vaccine waivers on file for public school attendance that are another obvious source of non-life-threatening data.

The real problem for Offit is not an ethical one; the real problem is that any such study would trump all the self-interested industry and CDC studies that never manage to include never-vaccinated chldren as a control group. Informal efforts to do that -- by myself, J.B.'s Generation Rescue and others -- have pointed toward less autism and asthma, and been met by the medical establishment and its sycophantic sock puppets with an absolute frenzy of denial and misdirection.

In our book, "The Age of Autism -- Mercury, Medicine, and a Man-made Epidemic," Mark Blaxill and I discuss this aversion to doing the obvious. "A very simple test goes right to the heart of the vaccine controversy: What is the difference in total health outcomes, including autism, between vaccinated and unvaccinated populations? We would argue that we've uncovered a number of natural experiments in human populations that suggest we should be seriously concerned over the ever-increasing load of childhood vaccinations, especially in the United States. ... Oddly, when it comes to doing such studies in human populations, and studying the autism levels in the Amish, the homeschooled, or philosophical objectors, vaccine industry proponents resist mightily. Conducting human vax/unvax studies in existing unvaccinated groups would be so fraught with methodological problems that they are 'retrospectively impossible.' As for controlled studies, they would be so burdened with permission problems that they would be 'prospectively unethical.' In short, the resistance to the proposal to do vax/unvax work has not only taken the attitude that 'we already know the answers,' but 'we should not seek to know.' It's pretty hard to make scientific progress in the face of this kind of epistemological nihilism."

I am begging, on bended knee, that pediatricians quit putting Offit on a pedestal, and that mainstream journalists do their job and ask him why he is so averse to any study that involves the health of never-vaccinated children. Don't let him call you "anti-vaccine," and don't let him change the subject to the quite thoroughly separate issue of preventing deadly disease. That's an important topic, but there is room at the table for both effective public health policies against disease AND a fearless examination of whether today's vaccine schedule contributes to chronic health problems -- whether Paul Offit denies it or not.

Below is the start of an article from The Delaware County times in Pennsylvania. Take note how an allopathic doctor, a surgeon, has helped recover his children with autism. Remember, surgeons FIX THE BODY - that's their mindset, unlike the traditional docs who "treat" autism, who at best, tinker with the unknown in a crap shoot of meds and behavioral services. It's natural that a surgeon would decide to "fix" his children's autism. It's a terrific article, and we should thank Patti Mengers for running it. When do you think it will be in the NYT or Philadelphia Inquirer? Click into the full article to see video HERE.

Dr. Patrick Elliott will never forget the day one of his 6-year-old twin sons delivered a self-diagnosis to him.

“I don’t have autism anymore,” the boy announced to his father.

It was a far cry from three years earlier when both twins were diagnosed with the neurobiological affliction of unknown origin. Between the ages of 18 months and 24 months, they went from being playful and happy to ceasing eye contact with others. They had lost any language they had acquired.

“They were basically disengaged,” said Elliott, a 47-year-old general and trauma surgeon at Crozer-Chester Medical Center in Upland.

Through a combination of conventional and alternative therapies, one of his twins improved so much he was able to join his peers in the mainstream by the time he entered first grade at his local public school where he is now a fourth grader. He no longer requires therapy. At his parents’ request, his name is being withheld from this story.

His twin brother, Bradley, is in fourth grade at a private special education school in Chester County, where he reads and writes at his grade level. He still receives biomedical intervention.

“He still has issues with anxiety and (obsessive-compulsive disorder),” Elliott said, “but he has dramatically improved and we hope he’ll be mainstreamed some day,”

Born in April 2001, the twins initially developed normally as their two older brothers had at their home in Middletown. Their mother, Marie, was the first to notice changes in the twins, Elliott said.

The twin who no longer requires therapy “had horrible, aggressive behaviors, self-injurious behavior, head-banging and echolalia where he would repeat what everybody said,” Elliott said. “That’s better than no language, but it was clearly a problem.” Continued...

The treatment category is sponsored by Lee Silsby, the leader in quality compounded medications for autism.

Thank you to Leigh Attaway Wilcox, from the MomBlogs of the Dallas Morning News for letting us share this terrific post with our readers. Please visit the DMN blogs regularly. Dan Burns has a regular blog there and Nancy Churnin, who runs the blogs, has graciously allowed me to contribute as well. KIM

Jenny McCarthy connects with warrior moms in Dallas

3:00 PM Thu, Oct 07, 2010 | Permalink | Yahoo! Buzz

Leigh Attaway Wilcox

Connections make life rich. Each of us seeks to surround ourselves with people who have similar priorities and goals. Sometimes it is thanks to rather dire situations that we truly connect with others who change our lives forever.

Jenny McCarthy, while on tour for her new book, Love, Lust and Faking It, took time out of her schedule Wednesday night to have a drink with a local group of moms (and a few dads, grandmothers and sisters) following a book signing at the Lincoln Park Barnes & Noble in Dallas. Why? She graciously honored a connection that many local "Warrior Moms," like me, have with her.

Let me be honest: Autism can be a very lonely place for families to journey. Especially in the beginning, after first receiving a diagnosis, many of us are so overwhelmed by responsibility ("I caused this" thoughts), shame ("I can't control my own child" thoughts) and grief ("my child may never...make friends...have a meaningful, fulfilling job...get married..." and on and on kinds of thoughts) we don't realize, (some of us for weeks, months or years) that we're far, far from alone...

October 20, 2004 was the day my son came into my life. Holding him in the parkade of the hospital, I vowed to give him the life he deserves and to teach him what he needs to know to make this happen. Little did I know at the time, he would teach me more about life, love, and compassion than I could ever have hoped to teach him. All this in the five short years he’s been in my life.

His development was normal at first; he met all his markers. The only thing was that he often got low-grade fevers that intensified and grew longer in duration as he got older. He was at the end of another cold and feverish spell when I took him in for his 12-month well visit. His pediatrician assured us that despite his illness, it was still okay to give him his MMR, Hib, Varicella, and his first flu shot. A few weeks later, he got his flu shot booster. A few weeks after this (Christmas Eve) his fever spiked to over 103, but the on-call pediatrician told us to monitor his temperature for at least another 24 hours. On Christmas Day, he was so sick, flushed, and hot that we rushed him to the emergency room, where his temperature was between 105 and 106. A chest x-ray revealed a very severe case of pneumonia. The ER doctor said that if we would have waited much longer, his chances to make it would not have been so good.

After his pneumonia is what I call “the big switch.” His development came to a screeching halt, and he lost most of the vocabulary he once had. At one year of age, he had about 10 words, and when he was evaluated at age two, he had regressed to two words, used infrequently at best. He quit showing interest in his peers and, more importantly, me and my wife. Looking back on video footage, this was when he started toe walking, hand flapping, and he became increasingly repetitive in everything he did.

This is when I came across Defeat Autism Now! and their list of physicians who use a biomedical protocol. It would forever change my son’s life. The long drives didn’t matter; the money didn’t matter. It was something I had to do for my son’s sake. I loved him far too much to give him any less. What happened over the next 2 ½ years is nothing short of a miracle.

As any parent treating an autistic child with a biomedical protocol knows, it’s a never-ending line of supplements, medicines, and homeopathics given in every imaginable way, and my son was no different. The amazing thing about him is that he hasn’t complained about any of it; he takes it as though he somehow knows it is helping him recover. There was one homeopathic in particular he was taking for a gut issue. Right after he took it for the first time, he immediately went to the bathroom and threw it up. The next night, he was at the kitchen counter, asking for it again. He took it again and almost threw it up, but he fought to keep it down. This is just one example about how he’s never complained about the supplements, medicines, or countless hours in various therapies. This is almost as exciting and amazing of the recovery that started to take place.

Soon after my son’s autism diagnosis, my wife and I were receiving advice from a DAN! Doctor helping our son. Transdermal glutathione and something very smelly called TTFD were prescribed, and we were told to rub each of these creams on his skin every night.

“How long do we need to do this for?” I asked.

“Six months, maybe a year,” came the doctor’s reply.

“A year? Are you kidding?”

I couldn’t believe it, what an inconvenience!

Those of you who are biomed veterans are already smiling. Five years later, I see the world a little differently, and I have this to say to all parents battling autism:

This job of recovery ain’t for the faint of heart.

Yup, I know it’s coming, parents who will complain and say that somehow I am blaming parents who don’t try hard enough for their child’s ongoing autism. I’m not. Really. Autism is a huge challenge. We all do the best we can…

Some people’s “best” just happens to be better than other people’s “best” -- and that’s the damn truth.

We're happy to share a recovery story from The Autism File written by Lisa Mize of Arizona. Click HERE to read the full story.

...Ricky received strong antioxidants and an oral chelator for four months during kindergarten. With each round he made huge leaps in cognitive functions, socialawareness, and language. He began to interact with his peers. He wanted to play! He participated in class. At one point his teacher, a 30-year elementary schoolveteran, pulled me aside and said, “I don’t know what you are doing, but whatever it is,don’t stop!” Round after round, he dumped huge amounts of metals. And round by round, we began to see our son again.(The holidays are here. The Autism File makes a great teacher, therapist, doctor or family member gift.)

The treatment category is sponsored by Lee Silsby, the leader in quality compounded medications for autism.

Dear Cleveland Frowns football fan, in light of the incredible success of the recent articles debunking all treatments for autism and declaring the autism vaccine connection dead, buried and verboten for future discussion in Lired Magazine and The Chicago Fibune Newspaper, we've decided to host, "Autism Isn't Treatable!" night at Frowns Stadium.

Our crack marketing department was contacted by PR maven Callous N. Humdinger who informed us that flogging families of severely ill children and promoting the AAP vaccination schedule and pharmaceutical profitability has brought pennies, nickels and even (dare we hope!) dimes to both the shrinking magazine and newspaper industries.

Come! Get your syringe shaped pen! Children under 98 will also receive an H1H1 shot along with a RotaTeddy Bear, that squirts real diarrhea when you squish its tummy!

Buy your tickets now and remember, Autism Isn't Treatable!

(PS) No offense to Cleveland intended. Their football team just had a name that gave me a good rhyme. Although, Cleveland is the home of Max Wiznitzer from University Hospitals, the doctor who tells us of "spontaneous recovery" and then acts as an expert wtiness for vaccine companies in our kids vaccine court. KS

Managing Editor's Note: We ran this post last April and thought we'd remind you to keep the faith and hope as you work to help your own child with autism. Children with autism can get better. Some will recover. None of this will happen if you believe the mainstream message that your child is doomed from the day of diagnosis. 85 year old men get cancer surgery and chemotherapy. 60 year old women are using science to give birth. Why should we believe a toddler's future isn't worth saving after an autism diagnosis? We don't. Do you?

By Angela Warner

My son, Nathan, lost his autism diagnosis on April 8th, 2009. I don’t even know where to begin. I am still trying to bring my mind back from being around the moon for HIM!!! I have shed many tears of complete and utter joy. I almost feel speechless. There is so much to tell. Not so much about the hell that we’ve been through, but how a deeper hell was avoided because I trusted the voice inside me. I trusted my Mother Warrior voice. I come from a long line of Mother Warriors.

The Chicago Tribune is running another series of articles stating that "risky" treatments are of little use to children/people with autism (HERE). (Meanwhile, the American Academy of Pediatrics, in their backyard, will tell parents to use powerful psychiatric drugs with little to know knowledge of how they work or their long term effects on kids. Talk about risky.) We'll be sharing more info with you about the interview process these journalists followed and what did and did not make their final article. In the meantime, we invite you to send Patrician Callahan (pcallahan@tribune.com), Trine Tsouderos (ttsouderos@tribune.com) and Editor Gerould Kern (gkern@tribune.com) a polite email sharing how treatments have improved your child's life. When you send your email, include a copy in our comments, please.

We beg to differ with the slant the Tribune is taking. Children can make tremendous progress and we will share stories with you from our recovery category. Start with this little girl, who is using speech for the first time. If you ever figure out why people with autism are NOT supposed to see improvement or, God forbid, recover, let us know. The anger, skepticism and outright denial of medical care for autism is stunning.

From August, 12, 2009 (HERE) : Yesterday, we told you about the 2009 National Autism Association Conference in Florida this November. The video below is a gorgeous advertisement for why you should attend the conference. This beautiful, nine year old child was non-verbal until just weeks ago.

Her Mom has attended every National Autism Association Conference. Because this child is Aly Fournier, daughter of NAA President Wendy Fournier. The video is called "Aly's Letters." Just see if you can stop smiling while you watch this.

From Wendy on 7/24/09: Friends, I have a miracle to share with you! It's all about Hopeism. My daughter Aly is 9 years old and severely injured by her vaccines - diagnosis: Autism. She has never had functional language. I have a recording on my computer of her saying Mama when she was about 11 months old. I haven't heard it since. The last 7 years have been more difficult than I can say, but many of you don't need an explanation, you're living it.

Yesterday, we told you about the 2009 National Autism Association Conference in Florida this November. The video below is a gorgeous advertisement for why you should attend the conference. This beautiful, nine year old child was non-verbal until just weeks ago.

Her Mom has attended every National Autism Association Conference. Because this child is Aly Fournier, daughter of NAA President Wendy Fournier. The video is called "Aly's Letters." Just see if you can stop smiling while you watch this.

From Wendy on 7/24/09: Friends, I have a miracle to share with you! It's all about Hopeism. My daughter Aly is 9 years old and severely injured by her vaccines - diagnosis: Autism. She has never had functional language. I have a recording on my computer of her saying Mama when she was about 11 months old. I haven't heard it since. The last 7 years have been more difficult than I can say, but many of you don't need an explanation, you're living it.

Managing Editor's Note: On Saturday night at the Autism One dinner, young Sam Debold turned on the charm (and every tear duct in the room) with his muscial performance. Here is Dr. Andrew Wakefield's introduction of Sam. You can see Sam's complete performance, including the intro, on the other side of the post jump. Just click down.

Ladies and Gentlemen, I have just a very, very small role tonight and that is to introduce someone that I first met some years ago in Detroit. He’s a Red Wings fan. And a when I met Sam Debold through my great friend Vicky Debold, his mother, Sam was profoundly autistic. And back then when I knew very little about this disease, I wondered quite what the prospects for Sam were. And I’ve been following his progress over the years and Sam has been doing extremely well.

And then I received the other day a YouTube video of Sam which his mother instructed me to watch of Sam playing Hotel California - he’d only just heard it, I believe, for the first time that day and it was one of the most extraordinary things I’d ever seen. And so it is a great great privilege for me and without any further adieu for me to introduce Sam Debold.

I should just say that Sam is dressed in a way that makes me look under-dressed. I forgive him for that. Sam, over to you man.

In 1983, the band U2 released an album titled War which includes Sunday Bloody Sunday, a song widely considered to be one of the most powerful political protest songs of all times. For anyone who doesn’t know the song’s history, it captures the anguish of an observer who witnessed Northern Irish civil rights protesters being fired upon by the British army (lyrics below).

For those of us within the vaccine-injured communities who are fighting on behalf of our children for the basic human right to make voluntary, informed vaccination decisions that are based on sound science rather than ideology, it is a battle. And it is personal. Like the victims of the civil war described in Sunday Bloody Sunday, many lives have been lost, our families torn apart, and everyday there’s unbelievable news where indeed, “fact” is fiction and TV becomes reality.

For anyone fortunate enough to be able to attend this weekend’s outstanding Autism One conference and Saturday night’s dinner, they heard my 11 year-old son, Sam, sing Sunday Bloody Sunday.

The contest is now closed for Sourcebooks' new release by author Leeann Whiffen:A Child's Journey out of Autism. Visit LeeAnn's website to read more and to buy the book HERE. Sourcebooks has generously donated FIVE books to the contest!

From the publisher:

Told with the intensity of a medical thriller, the extraordinary story of how Clay Whiffen and his family conquered autism.

My son was diagnosed with ASD in July 2006 at the age of 4. He had always been called “quirky” by his pre-school teachers, but I knew in my heart that there was much more to his tantrums, speech delay, behaviors and massive gut issues than was being addressed.

So, the official diagnosis came of no real surprise. However, hearing the word “autism” sent a jolt through my soul that empowered me to get busy doing everything and anything I could to help my sweet, darling boy.

Autism Yesterday has been accepted to the Orlando Film Festival and the film will premiere Saturday, November 8th at 4pm at The Gallery at Avalon in downtown Orlando. Admission to the screening is free, so please plan to attend if you live in the Orlando area or happen to be in town.

The 2008 Orlando Film Festival will hold its third annual event November 5th - 9th in Orlando, Florida. Festival events occur in and around the heart of the City, where our patrons are able to enjoy great films in exciting venues while experiencing Orlando's Downtown lifestyle.

Are you interested in being on a panel after the movie as either a parent or a doctor? If so, please contact Generation Rescue: info2@generationrescue.org

Managing Editor's Note: This piece is part of a series of recovery stories presented by Generation Rescue. The introduction rings especially true to me. Two of my girls were diagnosed by a colleague of Dr. Max Wiznitzer at University Hospitals of Cleveland. He's the "expert" on autism in Cleveland, especially if you're a pharmaceutical company in a vaccine trial looking for an expert witness for the defense. We left that office with absolutely nothing except a bill and two little girls whose lives had just been written off by a neurologist. Seems it happens everywhere. And I'm sure it's still happening.

Noah's Journey

At the age of three, having come to the conclusion that our son would most likely be diagnosed PDD-NOS, we wanted to take him to "the best" doctors for their opinion.

We ended up at Johns Hopkins' Kennedy Krieger Center, seeing Dr. Andrew Zimmerman who was considered one of the leading autism experts in the country. This was the biggest waste of time and money we have ever invested in anything. Zimmerman told us Noah was probably mentally retarded, would never talk and would never be much different than he was at that point.

With a wave of his hand he brushed off aggressive therapies and the notion that vaccines could have caused Noah's misery. Treatment? Get therapy for YOURSELVES, he said, to learn to deal with what you have.

My son was diagnosed with ASD in July 2006 at the age of 4. He had always been called “quirky” by his pre-school teachers, but I knew in my heart that there was much more to his tantrums, speech delay, behaviors and massive gut issues than was being addressed.

So, the official diagnosis came of no real surprise. However, hearing the word “autism” sent a jolt through my soul that empowered me to get busy doing everything and anything I could to help my sweet, darling boy.

Immediately, we began with the traditional modalities: ABA, speech and occupational therapy. Slowly, I began to engulf myself in research. Thank Heaven for the internet! I enrolled him in a social skills group at the local University, a swim therapy group with his ST and OT; I started my own social skills program for other families with ASD children; but he was still struggling for control of himself.

I hope that my son, Austin’s story will give hope for some families and maybe even shed some light for a few. His is different from most that you read about because he was never actually diagnosed with autism, but he was, undoubtedly, “becoming autistic.” What you do need to know is what he was diagnosed with.

He was born in March, 1998- 3 weeks to the day after my 18th birthday. I was always a single parent, with the help of my own parents. He was always normal- just a very happy & content little baby. He did most things right on cue and a few he was a late bloomer on, but nothing unusual. He received his 15 month MMR & Hep B vaccines on the same day. He was 17 months old (we were a little behind). Within 21 days he could no longer move- he just laid there staring at the ceiling unless you touched him……then he screamed the most bloodcurdling scream that you’ve ever heard.

Two and a half years ago I read the testimonials on this website and wept. I still do when I need a good cry. Those tears were an overflowing of my hope for my son, Quinn, and all children and families with autism. The stories confirmed for me what I knew in my heart: my son will recover from autism.

We’re almost there. Here’s a bit of our story. I hope that it will help you.

I had a normal pregnancy and delivery. I had a flu shot in the second trimester and a high fever in the third, but nothing extraordinary. Quinn was mildly jaundiced at birth and a big baby (10 pounds, and no, it wasn’t a c-section). I nursed him for 3 months, but couldn’t keep it up once I went back to work. His development was all pretty normal for the first year, and he started stimming around 12-15 months, after his MMR.

My name is Hope, mother of Pete. My son's half sister is a nonverbal child affected by autism. Pete was a normal full term baby born in August of 2000. I was concerned about vaccines because Pete’s half sister is a nonverbal child affected by autism. I only allowed single shots even though my doctor was adamantly against this practice. I ended up spreading the vaccines out because he seemed to develop "allergies/sinus" problems for several weeks after most shots. Pete has a continuous runny nose from the time he was about eight months old until food was removed from his diet at about 2.9 months old. The damage was final after the HIB vaccine on March 28, 2003. Pete lost words he had since he was eight months old. He threw fits where he would bang his head and pass out. I sought medical advice because I thought Pete may be having seizures. My once easy going child could no longer go anywhere and neither could I. Pete also suffered from constant constipation. He no longer slept through the night. When he did sleep he was very active and would often flip out of the bed.

I don't have to tell another parent the story. We all know the happy baby who begins to suffer recurrent ear infections, horrific diarrhea, and a variety of non-stop illnesses and rashes. "He'll out grow it", we heard the doctors say. Sleep disorder? No, just bad parenting. What about the screaming and fever after vaccinations? "Normal reaction", we're told. And then we watch our children spiral downward, losing skills, losing language, screaming over minor changes in routines.

Like you, I knew something was medically wrong with my child, but traditional doctors wouldn't listen. I finally turned to a naturopath who helped my son's immune system. Health and behaviours improved to the point that at age 8 he was labelled with aspergers rather than autism. But many health problems remained, and daily life teetered on the brink of hell. Rejection by school, family, friends and neighbors? Let's not even go there.

My son, Jack, was a sweet, typically developing baby. At his 4 month pediatric appointment, Jack was on track developmentally, had great eye contact and social gazing and was babbling in a manner that was complex for a baby his age (per his pediatrician).

However, between 4 and 6 months, he stopped babbling and got a "serious" look about him. He did not respond when we called his name, but whipped his head around when he heard the Elmo song. Over the next year his language did not develop. At 15 months he had no words. We sought Early Intervention and by 22 months felt that we were dealing with autism. His language at 17 months was that of a 5-8 month old. Soon our son, Jack, was diagnosed at 23.5 months with ASD - moderate at Vanderbilt University.

My son, Kale, was diagnosed at the age of two with Autism Spectrum Disorder, Sensory Integration Disorder, and ADHD tendencies. The child phyc. we took him to actually called me on the phone and said "I guess you have figured out by now that Kale has Autism". I almost fell out. I had no idea that was going to be the outcome.

So, like most of us, I cried, got angry, and then got busy seeing what hope there was to cling to. Unfortunately, in this part of the country, there is not much in the way of services for our special children. So we started early intervention and every therapy we could get him into. Yes, it did help to a point.

On Saturdays throughout the summer we will be presenting, "Generation Rescue Recovery Stories." We hope you enjoy them. Keep the faith and hope, friends. There is much we can do for our beloved children, no matter how old they are.

Mitchell was the smaller of my twin boys born at 36 1/2 weeks. I had a difficult pregnancy mainly complicated by preterm labor and was administered several medications to stop it. I also had a flu vaccine in my second trimester and again while I was nursing my boys when they were 8 months old.

Mitchell was a pretty miserable baby. He cried a lot, arched his back after nursing and had difficulty sleeping. He also developed eczema early on. None of this was alarming to us since this was almost identical to how our completely typical daughter was 2 years before. He seemed a little more fragile than his twin brother but the boys met milestones within days of each other. He learned to roll quickly and could enjoy a full night sleep when he was on his stomach. He was by far my most vocal baby. He could exchange babble with us with perfect eye contact and smiles for long stretches of time. He was very connected to us and loved to be carried around.